Recognising Australia's east coast gas crisis

14 March 2017

ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said events following the ACCC’s April 2016 Inquiry into the east coast gas market have confirmed the Commission’s worst fears.

Speaking in Sydney today at the 5th Annual Australia Domestic Gas Outlook Conference 2017, Mr Sims said, “One year ago at this conference I warned of “…an urgent need for both new and importantly more diverse sources of gas supply into the domestic market.”

“The outlook for gas supply is now even worse than it was a year ago; indeed, our worst fears are being realised,” Mr Sims said.

Mr Sims noted the word “crisis” can be overused but that the scarcity of available gas on the east coast has seen prices increase 1 ½ - 4 times above historic levels. These price increases have seen a significant reduction in gas used for electricity generation and are expected to flow through to significantly higher prices for residential customers.

“The most important problem, however, perhaps the real crisis, is the difficulties faced by industrial companies who rely on gas as a feedstock or as an energy source,” Mr Sims said.

Mr Sims pointed out that Australia has a surprising number of industrial companies for whom gas makes up 15-40% of their costs; for many other companies, gas as an energy source is around 5% of their costs.

“At best, it makes it hard for these companies to invest and plan with such high and uncertain gas prices and with considerable supply uncertainty. At worst, plants will close and jobs will be lost purely as a result of the current gas crisis,” Mr Sims said.

“Australia often makes it hard to be involved in manufacturing. We are now making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for some”, Mr Sims said.

“Arising out of this triple whammy we now have a strange debate about the three Queensland LNG projects,” Mr Sims said.

“As our ACCC Inquiry pointed out Australia has enormous gas resources; gas availability is clearly not the issue. The Inquiry also pointed out that Australia has and will benefit enormously from the three large LNG projects in Queensland,” Mr Sims said.

“These three projects also saw gas resources developed that otherwise would not have been.”

“If there is a criticism of the three LNG producers it is that they fell into the usual commodity project trap of assuming then-high $100 plus oil prices would continue, when long run average prices of around $55 would have been a better planning assumption.”

“The three LNG producers, however, could not have foreseen that after their investment decisions were made east coast onshore gas exploration and development would be largely prevented,” Mr Sims said.

“I doubt anyone in the industry expected Victoria to ban all onshore gas exploration and production which has stopped even conventional gas projects; nor could they have foreseen the delays and uncertainty over projects in NSW and the NT.”

“It is of course up to Governments to make such decisions. Having made them, however, it is difficult to see how people can then criticise the commercial contracts that were freely entered into by the LNG producers at a time when the likely supply outlook was very different,” Mr Sims said.

“That said, if I was providing private advice to the LNG producers, I would say they would be well advised to support the domestic market as much as they can at this critical time,” Mr Sims said.

“They could, for example, weigh carefully their willingness to sell gas on the LNG spot markets above meeting their contractual commitments. Alternatively, they could develop additional gas for the domestic market.”

Mr Sims went on to discuss some recent supply developments and progress with some of the other recommendations from the Inquiry’s 2016 report.